Do you NEED a Facebook page?
You would have to be living under a rock to have avoided the Facebook vanity URL madness that occurred this past weekend, with over 3 million users registering their URLs within 24 hours of the option becoming available (sidenote: I scored facebook.com/karlyn!) As I sat awake waiting to register my URL, I was pondering the buzz the event created and possible offshoots of it. I have to wonder if the whole thing is going to motivate people/institutions/companies to create a Facebook page that they hadn’t been planning and may or may not need in order to claim their URL. And if so, is that really the right reason to register that page? I think not.
If you didn’t need a Facebook page before vanity URLs came into existence, do you need one now? I understand claiming one’s territory, and support it in most cases, but only if it’s a strategic decision rather than a territorial one! I have to wonder how much a Facebook page can add to your brand if it’s registration was not thought out beyond “everyone else is doing it, so we have to too!” (although only pages with 1,000+ fans were eligible to register their URL this past weekend, that restriction is only temporary).
Think of it this way: What’s worse? Not scoring the Facebook vanity URL of your dreams or having a Facebook presence that is not executed well due to lack of planning and resources? I would argue that having a piss poor page is far worse than no page at all. Think about the following points:
- Do you have the resources to be able to build and grow a Facebook presence? Does it fit into your overall strategic plan?
- If you’re working within a school that is largely decentralized, is there another institutional page that you can piggyback off of, instead of creating your own individual presence? Do your users really differentiate between your individual office and the greater university?
- Most importantly, was a Facebook page in the works BEFORE the URL madness? If not, be disciplined and pragmatic. If you didn’t need one before, why do you need it now?
Facebook pages are great, and there are schools out there that have had tremendous success with them…but at the end of the day, they are nothing more than a tool. Before running out to register a page, think about why you haven’t registered one already, and what additional value it’s going to add to your institution. If you didn’t have the resources or need to build and maintain one before, this little bit of additional branding will not make the resources/need magically appear.
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June 15th, 2009
Sure, “having a piss poor [Facebook] page is far worse than no page at all”. That’s obvious, no?
For an institution considering building a Facebook page, I would think the questions would be:
What kinds of resources are required? Which kinds of institutions tend to benefit more than others? If I don’t have the resources to make a Facebook page, what are my alternatives?
June 15th, 2009
Great post! I agree that just having a Facebook page does not do a whole lot of good.
Thinking strategically up front about why you want a Facebook page, what purpose it serves, and what content you will push through this medium is key.
In the end, I think vanity URLs were probably more hype than reality. A lot of schools already created special URLs for their Pages like facbeook.university.edu that automatically redirected to their pages. These special URLs are pretty easy to remember and share. For the most part, the vanity URL helps you more easily share your Facebook Page in print, on TV, or in conversation.
How effective the page is at engaging users once they get there is much more important. And a vanity URL won’t do this for you.
June 15th, 2009
@kickstand - I stopped assuming that things go without saying a long time ago. To you and I, it may be obvious but do others caught up in the flash of it all but don’t really understand it, it may not be.
June 15th, 2009
What I think is interesting is that vocational/technical school students are still mostly on Myspace.
Facebook seems to be geared more for traditional universities, which have had groups and pages for some time now. But many for-profit schools are just not seeing the number of fans/followers on facebook and twitter that they are on Myspace. The demographic just isn’t there yet…
Anyone else notice this? Check out St. Leo’s (awesome) Facebook, Myspace and Twitter campaign. Myspace clearly is where the majority of their audience is.
June 15th, 2009
I think it really comes down to individual product considerations. As a blog owner I enjoy having fans of my blog so I can engage them in another meaning. My primary means of selling mostly comes from inbound organic search though.
So I guess presence is best? Just keep it regularly updated for any long tail benefits.
June 15th, 2009
@stuart - I think it comes down to goals, priorities and resources. For some places, you could have the best, most well maintained FB page in history but it may not get you anything to meet your bottom line goals. If a page works for you, then don’t let loud-mouthed people like me tell you not to have one
June 18th, 2009
At University of Richmond, we’re pretty new to all things social media and Web 2.0 (or 3.0, as it were), including Facebook. But we’re working on incorporating FB into our overall outreach/communications strategy, such as posting an announcement on our FB page when we launched our redesigned Web site yesterday. Check it out at http://www.richmond.edu and for screen shots and overview, visit:
http://www.richmond.edu/web-intro.html. We’re getting the hang of it, but learning that delicate balance between transparency and mindful marketing.